Matchroom canceled a card this week in Italy, the second cancellation in a country that has been hit hard by coronavirus.
The spreading coronavirus threat continues to impact boxing.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn canceled a card this week in Italy, the second cancellation in a country that has been especially hit hard by the respiratory virus.
A March 27 card featuring European light-heavyweight champion Francesco Patera of Belgium against Italian Devis Boschero in Verona, in northern Italy, has been cancelled by Matchroom.
Matchroom said in a statement that it will try to re-schedule both cards, but it wasn’t clear whether it could.
“Given the unprecedented nature of this now global issue, we are unable to offer more clarity on new dates,” Matchroom said in a statement.
All sporting events have been banned in Italy until April 3. Boxing has been banned in Japan throughout March.
Top Rank formally announced Monday that the Jose Ramirez-Viktor Postol fight will happen May 9 in Fresno, California, Ramirez’s hometown. The junior welterweight title fight had been scheduled for Feb. 1 in China, where the virus originated. But it was cancelled about a week before the fight and subsequently moved.
Eleider Alvarez started slow, but he picked up steam in the seventh round, downing Michael Seals with a heat-seeking right hand.
It was on pace to become one of the early year’s most tedious fights, replete with boos and hisses from a sleepy crowd. But Eleider Alvarez made sure that this light heavyweight bout would only be remembered for one thing: A howling right hand that gave Michael Seals a bad case of rigor mortis and the fans a reason, finally, to cheer.
With a few seconds left in Round 7, Alvarez and Seals traded right hands, but Alvarez ducked as he threw his and landed first. Instantly, Seals froze up and toppled backward, his head hitting the bottom rope. As Seals lay on the canvas motionless for a few beats, the referee waved off the bout. It was a dramatic ending to what began as a slow-grinding, nearly apathetic affair at Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York. And just like that, the Colombian veteran is once more in the title hunt.
This was Alvarez’s first fight since he lost his belt to Sergey Kovalev on points in their rematch in February 2018. Since then, Alvarez, who lives and trains in Montreal, has been out of the ring for nearly a year, due primarily to an Achilles tear that he suffered in that fight.
“I was out of the ring for 11 months,” Alvarez said after the fight Saturday. “I wanted to come back as the fighter that beat Kovalev, and this is what we prepared for.”
Neither Michael Seals (left) nor Eleider Alvarez did much until the deciding seventh round. Mikey Williams / Top Rank
Neither fighter threw or landed many punches through six-plus rounds — the winner landed fewer than 50 punches, according to CompuBox — but Alvarez (25-1, 13 KOs) showed his superior class by outworking Seals (24-3, 18 KOs) with his jab. The 37-year-old Seals seemed intent on ending the fight with one big shot, but Alvarez rarely allowed him to set his feet. The result was a stalemate that didn’t go over well with the crowd.
Alvarez, 35, admitted that he was rusty in the beginning, noting that his “trainer was not happy because I wasn’t doing what he was asking.” But perhaps that also had to do with being wary of Seals’ ruinous right hand.
Alvarez’s knockout of Seals was reminiscent of his August 2018 stoppage of Kovalev to win the WBO light heavyweight title.
Alvarez was overjoyed to emerge victorious after a long layoff. Mikey Williams / Top Rank
Once widely tapped as Puerto Rico’s next Felix Trinidad, lightweight Felix Verdejo, now 26, has been something of a reclamation project for the past few years. After tonight’s showing, it looks as if he will stay that way.
Verdejo decisioned Manuel Rey Rojas over 10 rounds in a ho-hum bout that made one wonder what the fuss was about all those years ago when Verdejo came out of the 2012 Olympics.
Verdejo (26-1 16 KOs), 26, won comfortably on scorecards that read 99-91, 97-93, and 98-92.
And yet it doesn’t appear the he helped himself inch closer to realizing his potential. The relatively innocuous Rojas (18-4, 5 KOs) was never truly imperiled by Verdejo at any time during the fight. What’s more, the Dallas native had success early on tagging Verdejo with stiff jabs and right hands. By Round 2, Verdejo, who has a history of swelling, already had a mouse form underneath his left eye.
Verdejo was able to put some distance between himself and Rojas in the latter half of the bout, but the Puerto Rican never truly looked comfortable in the ring. You might say he seldom has since his motorcycle accident in 2016.
It seems even Verdejo himself knew he turned in a subpar performance. Afterward, he graded himself a C.
Christopher Diaz (25-2, 16 KOs) widely outpointed Adeilson dos Santos (19-8, 15 KOs) in an eight-round featherweight bout. All three judges scored it 80-72.
Also, new Top Rank lightweight signee Abraham Nova (18-0, 14 KOs) scored an impressive fourth-round knockout of Pedro Navarrete (30-25.
